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108 Strength of the French geographical position, the wilderness had been penetrated, it became obvious immediately that the possession of the waterways gave mastery in a land then deemed incapable of land-carriage. To Burke the French colonies were "the most powerful, their nature considered, of any in America " ; for in the great Lakes lay the throne, the centre of vast dominion, by their alliance with the waters of the St Lawrence and the waters of the Mississippi. If, says Governor Pownall, we give attention to the nature of this country and the one united command and dominion which the waters hold throughout it, we shall not be surprised to find the French (though so few in number) in possession of a power which commands this country. The French work proceeded far more rapidly on the Mississippi than on the St Lawrence, for climate and soil offered no hindrance, and the unbounded range of Indian trade allowed scope for those qualities in which the French colonist proved himself strongest. But to establish dominion something more is needed than a full recognition of the possibilities of the future. No steady stream of trade poured down from Canada to Louisiana or vice versa. The entire neglect of the portage between Lake Erie and the Ohio, in favour of the distant communication by Green Bay and Wisconsin, proves that there was no trade seeking a route. That the appreciation of the importance of the Ohio came late, serves to show the unreality of the whole scheme of dominion. Similarly, in Guiana the French found themselves shut out from the water- ways of the Amazon and Orinoco through delay in planting a populous and enduring colony. Whereas to Burke it appeared sheer madness on the part of the English to have allowed the French to shut them in from behind the Alleghanies, to Oldmixon it was possible to speak lightly of French " dreams of colonies and commerce in the moon." Whereas alarmists saw the French work already accomplished, others foresaw that it would take a hundred years to make the French scheme a reality. With Canada, Louisiana and half St Domingo under one power, and Spain in alliance, it was thought that Jamaica and Cuba would next be absorbed, and that the English would be driven from the New World. The very dispersal of the scanty French population seemed to magnify their strength, for, like the Iroquois, they could give trouble out of all proportion to their numbers. There appears to be no reason to doubt that the French and British peoples proved equally prolific on the American continent. With both it was natural increase, and not a continuous stream of emigrants, that mainly raised the population. But in the race for numerical increase the handicapped competitor is sure to fall further and further behind; and from the outset France was handicapped. With no Huguenot exodus to parallel the twenty years 1 Puritan exodus, the French colonies depended for their origin on a mere handful of men and women, despatched many of them against their will and kept in the colonies by compulsion. All the French colonies were dependent on the engages-, not all the